Note 279 — SCENE II.
Reading edition
[Edits., appear speck and span gentlemen.] Speck and span new is a phrase not yet out of use; span new occurs in Chaucer's "Troilus and Creseide," bk. iii. l. 1671—
"This tale was aie span newe to beginne, Til that the night departed 'hem at winne."
This is thought a phrase of some difficulty. It occurs in Fuller's "Worthies," Herefordshire, p. 40, where we read of spick and span new money. A late friend of mine was willing to deduce it from spinning, as if it were a phrase borrowed from the clothing art, quasi new spun from the spike or brooche. It is here written speck and span, and in all cases means entire. I deem it tantamount to every speck and every span, i.e., all over.—Pegge.
In "Hudibras," Part I. c. 3, l. 397, are these lines—
Then, while the honour thou hast got Is spick and span new, piping hot," &c.
Upon which Dr Grey has this note: "Mr Ray observes ('English Proverbs,' 2d edit. p. 270), that this proverbial phrase, according to Mr Howel, comes from spica, an ear of corn: but rather, says he, as I am informed from a better author, spike is a sort of nail, and spawn the chip of a boat; so that it is all one as to say, every chip and nail is new. But I am humbly of opinion that it rather comes from spike, which signifies a nail, and a nail in measure is the 16th part of a yard; and span, which is in measure a quarter of a yard, or nine inches; and all that is meant by it, when applied to a new suit of clothes, is that it has been just measured from the piece by the nail and span." See the expression in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," act iii. sc. 5. [See Nares, edit. 1859; Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869; and Wedgwood's "Dictionary of English Etymology," all in v.]